Notes to Crescent Blues/Schaeffer’s Battalion

This newspaper article (and this one, and this one, too) about a New Orleans company known as the Crescent Blues was a bit of an eye-opener for me. I didn’t have them listed on my Confederate Order of Battle, nor could I find them on any other OOBs in my collection. In fact the only place I could locate them, along with the rest of Schaeffer’s Battalion, was on Jonathan Soffe’s fine First Bull Run.com. See here. A. W. seems to be very prescient in his prediction that independent companies would find difficulty “winning laurels.”

It’s a little confusing, as W. F. Amann’s Personnel of the Civil War, Vol I, the Confedrate Armies lists both a Crescent Blues and a Crescent City Blues. By various accounts, the company was assigned the 49th VA Infantry for one month in September 1861; as sharpshooters to Company C of the Washington Artillery in October 1861; and Art Bergeron’s Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units 1861-1865 shows that McGavock Goodwyn ended the war as Lt. Colonel of the 15th Louisiana Infantry, of which Company B of the Crescent City Blues was Co. K.

I’m sure we’ll get this straightened out eventually.

I sent this clipping to Jim Burgess at MNBP, and got this response:

Schaeffer was attached to Cocke’s Brigade and they were positioned along Bull Run to the left of the 19th Virginia’s rifle pits above Lewis Ford. As the article states, they supported a section of Captain Latham’s battery but they were also in supporting distance of Lt. Heaton’s section of Roger’s Battery.   The article provides more details on their participation than I’ve seen before.  I was not aware a portion of the battalion joined Kershaw.  Nor was I aware of Schaeffer’s conduct which brought about the COI.

We are well aware of the duel between Captain White of the Tiger Rifles and Captain McCausland of Evans’ staff.  The duel took place on the grounds of the Pittsylvania plantation.      The cause of the quarrel is not entirely clear.   I suspect it was related to the movement of White’s company from Pittsylvania, where they had been initially deployed as skirmishers, to Matthews Hill, where they emerged in front of the skirmishers of the 4th S.C. and received (and returned) friendly fire.   White is believed to have accused McCausland of not delivering an order from Evans.  McCausland felt a need to defend his honor and challenged White.   Given the choice of weapons, White opted for the .54 caliber, M1841 “Mississippi” rifles with which his company was armed.  McCausland was mortally wounded in the duel and subsequently died at Pittsylvania.

Anyone with a line on the transcript or a summary of the Schaeffer court of inquiry (COI), please let me know.

Today, Crescent City Blues is perhaps best known as the smoky tune that would eventually become Folsom Prison Blues: